I have purposely let sometime pass from my last post before writing again. I wanted to drive home the fact that…this takes time… Not one parent or loved one of an addict will all of a sudden have the answers or tools (materials) needed to heal or even to begin the process. Many of us will come to realize we in fact suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Seeing our loved one as they have succumb to an overdose, finding them living in a car or in a parking garage, or we have spent months and years hiding our purses, wallets, trying to protect their younger siblings. One day we realize just how much trauma our hearts have been through and we will take the much needed and warranted time to start looking for help.
The rose colored glasses eventually fall off, and we will eventually reach for a pair of glasses that will help us deal with the realities before us and they will also help us gather the much needed materials we as loved one will need. For me that list began with the “new tin” to patch the holes. As I stated in my last post, the project vehicle (or my mother’s heart) once the rust had been completely cut away was left pretty desolate. The new tin needed wouldn’t be just a couple of small patches; it would need whole fenders, doors, hoods and roofs. That new tin was found literally in my faith. I gathered it on my knees before God, crying out in desperation for help. The wounds I had ran deep, and there was no self-help book or group that was going to get me through. I needed the Great Physician.
He provided the new tin. He would become the support and strength needed to get me to the next step. There was nothing I could do to fill the holes; all the patches I had tried in the past didn’t last. They we very temporal and had caused even greater overall damage.
If you are like me and have come to the place where your heart’s so full of damage from the years of living in this… just like our addicts, we need to come to the place of acknowledging that there is a Higher Power that we must turn to for strength and peace. I urge you to begin in the same place.
A Mothers Heart 
Your words, “I needed the Great Physician” bought tears to my eyes as I realized how true this is for me and all POA. We could not survive this without His grace and strength. Keep posting. I am always blessed and encouraged.
Only the Great Physician can heal this brokenness and make it into new again. Thank you for reminding me.
I am new to living this broken life. Only those who have been through it know the feelings that I am feeling. I stumbled on this blog by accident but took the time to read it – Thank you for posting.
I’m glad you found me. Keep coming by… And I’m so sorry you are at this place…
Thank you for this post which allows expression of the pain so many of us feel. I have an only child, a 28 year old who told me on his 22nd birthday (March 2008) that he was an IV drug user of heroin and oxycontin. He has been on methadone since 2011 and managed to marry a wonderful person, get a good job, adopt her daughter and have one of their own May 2014. But as yet he has not really faced the addiction or reached for the Higher Power. As a new grandmother, I am just beginning to feel the hurt and fear in my heart around the addiction. I have begun writing a book about the experience and opening up my heart again. Let me share a few words given to me a couple of weeks ago when I was really struggling that are in line with your comments:Our pain has to be heard and felt so that we can heal the issues beneath the pain. As you feel your pain and heal, it helps you recognize others pain and through your work help them to heal. May God’s spirit comfort you and bring healing. I read once that God can heal a broken heart if we give God all the pieces.